Best Countries 2018 - U.S. News & World Report

Best Countries 2018

Global rankings, international news and data insights

Copyright ? 2018 U.S.News & World Report LP All rights reserved.

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Best Countries Overall Rankings 2018

Overall Rank

Country

Entrepreneurship

Adventure

C itiz e ns hip

Cultural Influence

Heritage

Movers

Open for Business

Power

Quality of Life

Switzerland

5

17

2

7 27 28

2 17 6

Canada

7

18

4 11 40 32

7 12 1

Germany

1

58

10 14 21 35 19 4 10

United Kingdom

4

40

11

5 11 51 20 5 13

Japan

2

38

19

6 12 5 26 7 14

Sweden

6

20

5 10 37 42

5 19 3

Australia

13

11

8

9 28 22 14 16 5

United States

3

33

16

3 22 29 43 1 17

France

14

14

14

2

4 47 27 6 16

Netherlands

9

15

7 12 24 53

9 21 8

Denmark

11

35

3 16 39 58

4 27 2

Norway

10

26

1 22 44 37

8 26 4

New Zealand

19

7

9 18 43 11 10 35 9

Finland

15

30

6 25 49 38

6 42 7

Italy

21

2

20

1

1 30 45 18 22

Singapore

8

34

23 13 32 3 13 24 18

Austria

18

23

12 24 17 69 16 29 11

Luxembourg

17

45

13 27 51 67

1 31 12

Spain

22

3

17

4

2 49 32 23 19

China

16

57

38 21 10 4 33 3 21

Ireland

20

13

15 28 20 48 11 37 15

South Korea

12

62

26 30 48 15 25 11 24

United Arab Emirates

23

67

30 17 67 1 67 10 25

Portugal

26

10

18 26

9 71 24 38 20

India

28

37

51 29

6 2 29 15 32

Copyright ? 2017 U.S. News & World Report LP. All rights reserved.

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Best Countries Overall Rankings 2018

Overall Rank

Country

Entrepreneurship

Adventure

C itiz e ns hip

Cultural Influence

Heritage

Movers

Open for Business

Power

Quality of Life

Russia

24

56

39 23 16 8 80 2 38

Thailand

38

4

52 19

8 6 15 49 30

Greece

35

5

25 15

3 24 55 52 29

Brazil

37

1

31

8 14 9 60 30 52

Israel

25

70

33 40 29 10 64 8 35

Mexico

40

9

41 20

5 27 41 39 42

Poland

27

50

21 45 25 80 31 48 23

Czech Republic

29

44

22 46 31 75 40 69 26

Malaysia

34

29

54 44 36 20 12 59 28

Qatar

30

76

49 34 80 12 38 20 48

Turkey

36

27

58 31

7 25 77 14 46

Saudi Arabia

31

78

64 38 57 14 78 9 41

Hungary

32

48

24 49 23 79 30 73 27

South Africa

33

25

40 36 33 18 61 28 62

Argentina

39

8

28 32 18 46 68 53 56

Indonesia

43

31

62 43 30 23 22 47 34

Egypt

56

42

75 33 13 7 73 25 70

Peru

67

21

45 42 19 19 23 72 49

Vietnam

52

43

69 52 26 13 28 34 40

Costa Rica

62

6

42 39 52 40 17 77 47

Dominican Republic

66

12

43 37 55 44 18 74 45

Morocco

63

32

71 35 15 17 50 60 53

Panama

47

28

44 51 65 65

3 64 55

Philippines

45

16

55 41 47 34 34 55 37

Croatia

42

24

27 47 35 60 49 76 33

Copyright ? 2017 U.S. News & World Report LP. All rights reserved.

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Best Countries Overall Rankings 2018

Overall Rank

Country

Sri Lanka

Chile

Slovenia

Romania

Colombia

Bulgaria

Kenya

Uruguay

Latvia

Ecuador

Bahrain

Tanzania

Myanmar

Azerbaijan

Tunisia

Guatemala

Bolivia

Jordan

Ukraine

Kazakhstan

Ghana

Belarus

Oman

Pakistan

Lebanon

Entrepreneurship

Adventure

C itiz e ns hip

Cultural Influence

Heritage

Movers

Open for Business

Power

Quality of Life

59

39

61 53 46 16 21 67 54

49

22

37 48 34 56 37 68 43

41

55

32 67 59 74 35 80 36

44

46

35 56 38 78 51 71 39

58

19

47 50 42 41 62 56 65

53

54

36 70 53 76 36 75 31

73

47

59 54 61 31 44 61 57

54

41

34 58 54 70 46 78 50

50

60

29 72 71 68 48 79 44

60

36

50 61 60 54 39 70 59

46

75

65 55 78 45 47 43 61

80

53

63 59 74 26 52 62 69

75

61

77 66 62 21 65 50 58

64

66

60 74 63 33 56 45 67

69

52

76 60 50 62 53 66 51

77

49

57 68 66 61 42 65 68

78

51

56 69 69 52 54 58 63

65

69

72 64 45 39 72 32 75

48

59

46 62 58 66 75 33 72

71

73

68 76 72 36 70 41 64

74

68

67 73 77 55 57 63 66

51

63

48 65 70 73 76 36 60

57

77

66 63 75 50 69 46 74

68

79

79 75 68 59 66 22 71

61

65

73 57 41 57 74 40 79

Copyright ? 2017 U.S. News & World Report LP. All rights reserved.

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Best Countries Overall Rankings 2018

Overall Rank

Country

Nigeria

Iran

Serbia

Angola

Algeria

Entrepreneurship

Adventure

C itiz e ns hip

Cultural Influence

Heritage

Movers

Open for Business

Power

Quality of Life

70

71

78 71 76 63 59 44 77

72

80

80 78 56 43 79 13 80

55

64

53 77 64 77 71 51 73

76

74

70 79 79 64 58 57 76

79

72

74 80 73 72 63 54 78

Copyright ? 2017 U.S. News & World Report LP. All rights reserved.

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Best Countries Overall Rankings 2018

How We Score

The subrankings, their weights in calculating the overall ranking score and the country attributes factored into each are below. The country attribute scores were equally weighted within each subranking. Subranking weights do not add up to precisely 100.00 due to rounding.

Adventure (3.24%): Friendly, fun, pleasant climate, scenic, sexy

Citizenship (16.95%): Cares about human rights, cares about the environment, gender equality, progressive, religious freedom, respects property rights, trustworthy, welldistributed political power

Cultural Influence (12.93%): Culturally significant in terms of entertainment, fashionable, happy, has an influential culture, modern, prestigious, trendy

Entrepreneurship (17.42%): Connected to the rest of the world, educated population, entrepreneurial, innovative, provides easy access to capital, skilled labor force, technological expertise, transparent business practices, well-developed infrastructure, well-developed legal framework

Heritage (3.17%): Culturally accessible, has a rich history, has great food, many cultural attractions

Movers (10.00%): Different, distinctive, dynamic, unique

Open for Business (11.99%): Bureaucratic, cheap manufacturing costs, corrupt, favorable tax environment, transparent government practices

Power (7.42%): A leader, economically influential, politically influential, strong international alliances, strong military

Quality of Life (16.89%): A good job market, affordable, economically stable, family friendly, income equality, politically stable, safe, well-developed public education system, well-developed public health system

Copyright ? 2018 U.S.News & World Report LP All rights reserved.

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Best Countries Overall Rankings 2018

Methodology

Behind a country's wealth and success are the policies that create possibilities, the people that drive the effort and the history that shapes the environment and perspective.

Globalization has expanded a country's presence beyond its physical borders, and the 2018 Best Countries rankings seek to understand a nation's worth beyond hard metrics.

The 2018 Best Countries report and rankings are based on how global perceptions define countries in terms of a number of qualitative characteristics, impressions that have the potential to drive trade, travel and investment and directly affect national economies. Eighty nations ? up from 60 in the inaugural rankings ? were measured in the report.

Ranking the Countries

U.S. News & World Report worked with partners at WPP's brand strategy firm BAV Consulting and The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania to identify a set of 65 country attributes - terms that could be used to describe a country and that are also relevant to the success of a modern nation. Attributes by nation were presented in a survey where participants assessed how closely they associated one with the other. The study and model was developed by John Gerzema, David Reibstein and Anna Blender.

Each country was scored on each of the 65 country attributes based on a collection of individual survey responses. The more a country was perceived to exemplify a certain characteristic in relation to the average, the higher that country's attribute score and vice versa. These scores were normalized to account for outliers and transformed into a scale that could be compared across the board.

Attributes were grouped into nine subrankings that rolled into the Best Countries ranking: Adventure, Citizenship, Cultural Influence, Entrepreneurship, Heritage, Movers, Open for Business, Power and Quality of Life.

These thematic subrankings were formed by grouping country attributes that had similar global trends in survey responses. Subranking scores for each country were determined by averaging scores that country received in each of the attributes comprising each subranking.

To determine the weight each subranking score had in the overall Best Countries score, each was correlated to 2014 gross domestic product purchasing power parity per capita, a measure of inclusive prosperity, as reported by the International Monetary Fund. More prevalent relationships that demonstrated an interconnectedness with the wealth metric were weighted more.

Copyright ? 2018 U.S.News & World Report LP All rights reserved.

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Best Countries Overall Rankings 2018

The Movers subranking represents a version of BAV's BrandAsset Valuator Model of Brand Building, a metric developed by BAV that is predictive of a country's future growth in terms of gross domestic product purchasing power parity per capita. Instead of one year of data, it was correlated to predicted growth of the metric from 2014 to 2020.

To arrive at a country's rank, we first calculated its standardized scores in each of the 65 country attributes. Each country received nine subranking scores by averaging its scores for the country attributes grouped into that subranking. A country's overall score reflects the weighted sum of its subranking scores. The subranking and overall scores were rescaled so that the top country in each category received a value of 100, and others were calculated as a proportion of that top score. Scores were ranked in descending order.

Additional lists rank the countries on more specific topics, such as the Best Countries for Women and the Best Countries for Education. Groups of relevant country attribute data were used to score and rank countries for these lists, but they do not affect the overall Best Countries score or ranking.

Choosing Survey Participants

To understand how countries are perceived, we endeavored to survey engaged citizens who were broadly representative of the global population, with an emphasis on

those who would deem the topic and findings most relevant to their lives.

Self-identification in demographic questions distinguished respondents into three defined groups: informed elites college educated individuals who consider themselves middle class or higher and who read or watch the news at least four days a week; business decision-makers senior leaders in an organization or small business owners who employ others; and general public - adults at least 18 years old who were nationally representative of their country in terms of age and gender.

Individuals who were likely to fit these descriptions were targeted and sent the link to an online survey through Lightspeed GMI, a global market research and data collection firm. We aimed to gather an equal share of responses from each type of citizen.

A total of 21,117 individuals from 36 countries in four regions - the Americas, Asia, Europe and the Middle East and Africa - were surveyed. Of the respondents, 6,016 were informed elites and 6,489 were business decision-makers. Some respondents were considered both informed elites and business decisionmakers.

Regardless of demographics or participant type, each individual's responses weighed equally in the results.

Copyright ? 2018 U.S.News & World Report LP All rights reserved.

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